Cheers and laughter echoed the Orlando Central Florida Fairgrounds Pavilion on Saturday, June 20, in the afternoon, as two communities came together to celebrate Juneteenth and Pride month.
Come Out With Pride Orlando hosted Love & Liberation: A Boldly Unapologetic Juneteenth Pride Celebration, a free event honoring Black identity and LGBTQIA+ pride for its seventh year.
Juneteenth, short for “June Nineteenth,” marks the moment when enslaved Texans learned they were free in 1865, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Pride Month commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Riots, a rally against police brutality at a small dive bar in New York City called the Stonewall Inn.
Come Out With Pride Orlando is a nonprofit behind Orlando’s LGBTQIA+ community celebrations, with the mission to cultivate visibility, authenticity, and acceptance by curating inclusive experiences that celebrate and embody the spirit of queer resilience.
Guests experienced live performances by black and queer artists, including Kirk DaVinci & Onyx Valentino, Black Magix Royal, Lady Bri Adonis, Remini Mogul, and UNITY Step Team. While enjoying the sultry sounds of DJ Remeice, the event held an area showcasing centuries of queer history up until the present day.
The event also featured booths promoting LGBTQIA+ preventive care and education, as it was presented by Harmony Healthcare. As food trucks surrounded the pavilion serving Black-centric cuisine, Black-owned and LGBTQIA+ vendors had the opportunity to promote their merchandise.
Bucket Hat Forever owner Ty Bogle began his design pursuit of the headwear five years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic. After becoming a vendor at his first event that also celebrated Juneteenth, the positive reception led Bogle to push his craft further.
“I prioritize Pride events [and] I really like being part of this community,” Bogle said. “I designed stuff four years back that had flags representing some of the more underrepresented members of the LGBTQIA+. When I brought them out and the response I got from it, I realized I was giving to the underserved, and it was a good feeling.”
Bogle believes events like Love & Liberation are not only important for businesses like his but also for preserving the community’s identity and preventing erasure.
“I think that it’s important to let people know that there’s something for the community and for Juneteenth,” Bogle said. “I don’t want it to be erased, especially in recent times. It’s sort of a push against what’s happening: rainbow sidewalk, pulse, and erasure. But you can’t erase us, and that’s why I look forward to doing something, coming and showing out.”
The Gobin’s Pantry owner and artist Valentina is an award-winning food illustrator who specializes in drawing cuisine from reality and fantasy. After her experience with exploring various art forms as a graduate of the Ringling College of Art and Design, she said that none of it clicked until she started drawing food.
“The number one thing I like doing is immortalizing the foods that you eat so that you’ll never forget them,” Valentina said. “You’ll always go out and reach for them again, whenever you’re in your kitchen or wherever.”
The self-proclaimed foodie said her personal experiences amplify the importance of celebrations similar to Love & Liberation mean to both the Black and LGBTQIA+ communities.
“It’s really important to learn more about my history and not be afraid to express it because when I was growing up, I wasn’t really allowed to express my blackness and I was definitely not allowed to express my queerness at all,” Valentina said. “I’m very happy to be here [and] I’m really happy that I could be black and be queer at the same time. I wouldn’t be anyone else.”
Whether you’re an ally or part of either community, Love & Liberation was a time of inclusion and celebration of people from all walks of life. Come Out With Pride will be hosting its next event, Come Out With Pride 2026, in the heart of downtown Orlando at Lake Eola on Saturday, October 17, from noon to 10 p.m.
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